How thick is the icecap that covers Antarctica?

Answer 1

The Antarctic continent nearly doubles in size every winter, because the sea freezes around the continent.

At the beach, at McMurdo Station, for example, the ice is eight to 20 feet thick by the end of winter, based on the shape of the benthos under the ice. Ice tends to be thicker where the sea is more shallow.

Answer 2

Over the South Pole, the ice is about 12,000 feet thick, and is one of the few places where estimated measurements have been made as to the thickness of the continental ice cap.
About 4 miles!

Answer 3

While it may be difficult and challenging to measure the thickness of ice that covers Antarctica -- 10% of the earth's surface -- from The Cryosphere, we learn from the scholarly paper "Bedmap2: improved ice bed, surface and thickness datasets for Antarctica" that measurements exceeding 4,000 m have been made of its ice thickness.

This paper was last published: 28 February 2013.

Answer 4

The Antarctica ice sheet is at least 10,000 feet above sea level at the South Pole, and the ground beneath sea level is pressed nearly 1,000 feet below sea level at that location.

The Ross Ice Shelf is more than 600 feet high above the water line. According to its Wikipedia page, the shelf has been measured to be about 750 m (2,450 ft) thick.

Answer 5

The ice cap covering Antarctica is over 2.5 miles thick. It is more commonly known as the Antarctic ice sheet.

Answer 6

The ice depths on the Polar Plateau can reach 15,000 feet (4,572 metres). The continent's average ice thickness is 7,000 feet (2,133 metres).

Answer 7

The location of the 'thickest point' of ice on Antarctica has not yet been discovered. However, one thick point is the South Pole which sits on 2,700 meters or 9,000 feet of ice.

Answer 8

6,500 feet deep

Answer 9

200 feet